4o8 



NATURE 



[March 6, 1879 



author, as Dean of the Evening-class Lectures at King's 

 College, London, delivered before the Principal, the staff, 

 and students, at the commencement of this Winter 

 Session. 



It deals with the antiquities of coal, and as might have 

 been anticipated, shows much patient scholarship and 

 research amongst the works of those classical and 

 mediaeval writers who are not usually troubled by geolo- 

 gists. Prof. Wiltshire considers that there is evidence to 

 show that ignition of coal, which had been selected as 

 hut-making material with the help of palaeolithic and 

 neolithic implements, occurred and probably accidentally ; 

 the mineral not having been selectedfor its now well-known 

 quahties. Nevertheless, he admits that "the general 

 non-employment of the coals and lignites, in the stone 

 and bronze ages, is well evidenced by the absence of 

 allusion to their use, both in myths and traditions of that 

 date and in the manuscripts which followed not long 

 after." Noticing the silence of Homer on the use of 

 coal, the author very properly places the Levitical coals 

 and those of the Gospels amongst charcoals derived 

 from wood, and he shows that the " carbo " of Pliny and 

 the " anthrax " of Theophrastes were identical. Search- 

 ing over the dreary pages of this last-named author. Prof. 

 Wiltshire shows that this Greek first noticed and recorded 

 that certain stones were obtained from the ground, and 

 that, broken in pieces, they burn like anthrax (charcoal), 

 -and that they come from Liguria and EHs. 



The tertiary strata in those localities are lignitic, and 

 true palaeozoic coal does not exist there. As years rolled 

 on many coal-like minerals were used, and fancies 

 environed them. Certain it is that during the Roman 

 occupation of Britain, coal was stored and used, for it has 

 been found beneath the ruins of villas in Warwick, Shrop- 

 shire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Durham. The gradual 

 extinction of the Romano-British was followed by hun- 

 dreds of years of f orgetfulness of coal, and then we find the 

 Abbot , of Peterborough leasing ground, a part of the rent 

 to be paid in coal, about the time of Alfred. About 1190 

 the Edinboro' coal-field began to be used, and in 1239 a 

 monopoly of the sale of coal was granted to the Newcastle 

 people. 



This interesting lecture is most readable, and well 

 worthy of the accomplished editor of the Palseontographi- 

 cal Society's volumes, P. M. D. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



\77ie Editor dees not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake ta return, or 

 to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. No 

 notice is taken of anonymous co?nmunications. 



[The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as 

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 inunications containing interesting and novel facts ^ 



Quarantine in Italy 



Allow me to say a few words in defence of the prohibitive 

 measures taken by the Italian Government against the introduc- 

 tion into our country of that pest, the phylloxera, and which, 

 though subjected to much unreasonable criticism and selfish 

 opposition here and abroad, have at least been hitherto perfectly 

 successful in protecting our vineyards. Certainly at first sight it 

 would seem that the only necessary measure to be taken ought 

 to be a restriction on the importation of foreign vines, and of the 

 plants (such as fruit-trees) usually cultivated along with them in 

 nursery-grounds, and on whose roots some stray insects might 

 probably occur ; and to such a restriction did the Govenmient 

 at first limit itself. But it was soon found out to be quite 

 ineffectual, as it only gave occasion to smuggling on a gi-and 

 scale, encouraged, I am sorry to say, by certain horticiUtural 

 firms that did not fear to compromise their respectability by so 

 doing. We all know what ingenious persons smugglers can be ; 

 they began introducing the prohibited plants in their leafless 

 state labelled as choicest exotics, to the utter confusion of the 



Custom House officials, who, being neither naturalists nor scien- 

 tific men to any degree, were at a loss how to act, until the 

 Government was obliged at last to send the order that no live plant 

 should pass the frontier ; a simple rule that anybody can under- 

 stand, and not to be regretted when one has seen in France and 

 elsewhere thousands of acres of what were once flourishing vine- 

 yards blasted by the pest, and has heard of the millions of money 

 lost that way. I shall not mention such petty annoyances as 

 being obliged to leave a bouquet at the Custom House ; but surely 

 it is better that our gardens should be deprived of those novelties 

 and rarities that are not obtainable through seeds, rather than 

 run the slightest risk of diminishing one of the principal resources 

 of our impoverished country. Though myself a director of a 

 botanic garden, I own I cannot push my love for flowers to that 

 extent to sacrifice to it much greater interests. 



Pisa, February 26 T. Caruel 



Captain Cook's Accuracy 



Apropos of your article on the centenary of Capt. Cook's death 

 in Nature, vol. xix. p. 334, it may be interesting to call atten- 

 tion to his remarkable accuracy in determining the positions of 

 places laid down in his charts. There is a great contrast between 

 his accuracy and the evident carelessness of some more recent 

 navigators. Some years ago when I was sailing in the Pacific 

 we were one day approaching the recorded position of an island 

 which no one on board our vessel had seen. I was conversing 

 with the captain, and asked him whether he expected to find it 

 in its recorded place. To this he replied : "It is sure to be 

 there, for Capt. Cook determined its position ; and although I 

 have been now a good many years in the Pacific, I have never 

 yet found him wrong. Had it been the United States Exploring 

 Expedition which determined its place, I should have thought 

 the chances just about equal as to whether it is right or wrong." 



There is, unfortunately, too much ground for the remark 

 about the observations of Admiral Wilkes's Expedition. Those 

 who have had opportunities to test the work done by it know 

 that it is often most inaccurate. Quantity of work rather than 

 the quality of it appears to have been the - rule with the navi- 

 gators who conducted that expedition. I believe all Cook's 

 work was worthy of his reputation. 



As this is a serious charge to make against such an expedition, 

 it may be well to give some examples to substantiate it. The 

 particulars of the first I take from Findlay's " South Pacific 

 Directory," pp. 633-34. Respecting Vatoa, or Turtle Island, 

 south-east part of the Fiji Archipelago, he says: "A singular 

 mistake crept into the survey by the United States' Expedition. 

 On May 5, 1840, the Vincetmes 'had a sight of Turtle Island, 

 and determined it to be in lat. 19° 48' S., long. 178' 33' W. It 

 has the appearance of a small rounded knoll.' This would seem 

 to be circumstantial, and is further confirmed by a foot-note on 

 the same page. In a subsequent passage the Porpoise is said to 

 have determined it to be in lat. 10° 50' S., long. 178° 37' 45" W. 

 * It was found to be three miles long, by one and a quarter mile 

 wide. The reef extends all around the island, and is from one 

 and a half to two miles wide.' " 



If we suppose that in the above 10° is a misprint for I9°^there 

 will be only 2' in lat. and 4' 45" in long, difference between the 

 two determinations. But it appears that both of these are about 

 30' in error in their longitude. On this Findlay remarks : 

 " This singular variation in longitude from that assigned to it by 

 the great discoverer Cook (178° o' W.), or 37' in error, is 

 startling, because the accuracy of Cook in this instance had been 

 confirmed by other navigators." He then gives an account of an 

 examination of it made by Capt. Worth in H.M.S. Calypso in 

 1848, when he made the island to be "apparently about six miles 

 in length," its centre twenty-nine miles eastward of Wilkes's 

 position, and, instead of the reef from one and a half to two 

 miles ^yide all around, on the south-west a reef five or six miles 

 wide, with "a large oval coral patch detached fi*om it lying north 

 and south, eight or nine miles in length. " 



My second example of inaccuracy shall be one in cartography. 

 Some years ago I was about to make a trip into the mountains 

 of Savaii, the largest of the Samoa Islands. Before starting, 

 with Wilkes's chart in my hand, I took a few bearings of points 

 which might serve for comparison when I reached the mountains. 

 I was standing at Tuasivi, a place on the eastern end of tb. 

 island which may be seen marked in Grundemann's map. Tc 

 my siurprise I found I could see fi-om that place to Tafua point, 

 the south-east extremity of the island, whereas the chart made 



